Bernie Ecclestone plea for games to go ahead

QPR owner Bernie Ecclestone believes cancelling the opening weekend of the Premier League season would send a “terrible message” across the globe.

Bernie Ecclestone says cancelling the opening of the Premier League would send a “terrible message” []

Games are in doubt because of the rioting that has spread across the country from London.

England’s friendly with Holland and several Carling Cup matches have been called off in the wake of the violence but Ecclestone, whose side won promotion back to the top flight last season, says it would be the wrong decision to cancel this weekend’s fixtures.

He said: “It would send a terrible message to the rest of the world. We are about to have the Olympic Games, so it is not a good message to give.

“I don’t think there’ll be a threat to QPR. I have spoken to people at the club who seemed quite confident it will go ahead. But there’s not much stuff people can loot at a match so it won’t attract the kind of people that have been active in the last few days.”

QPR verses Bolton is one of three London-based top-flight fixtures scheduled to take place this weekend.

It would send a terrible message to the rest of the world

Bernie Ecclestone

Fulham are due to host Aston Villa and Everton travel to Tottenham, where the trouble first erupted on Saturday.

The violence has since spread to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol – where last night’s Carling Cup clash between Bristol Rovers and Watford was called off. Last night, Liverpool
and Everton made a joint appeal for calm and Reds boss Kenny Dalglish
joined forces with Toffees counterpart David Moyes to call for rioting
to stop.

“The city has made incredible progress
over the past few years and no one wants to see our restored
reputation damaged by what we have witnessed over the last couple of
days,” said Dalglish. “For everyone’s sake, let’s stop this now and pull
together for the benefit of the whole community.”

Moyes
said: “There can be no justification for the shocking display of
behaviour that has been witnessed throughout the city and the rest of
the country.

“Football has already suffered and
we need to ensure that this stops immediately so thousands of people
up and down the country can enjoy one of the most anticipated weekends
of the year.”